The Joy of Sax: Israelites, Desmond Dekker

Every country around the world has its working class, and every country's culture has its way of celebrating those whose backs and brows help keep the lights on, the fast food frying, and the bridges standing. Expanding one's horizons beyond the familiar borders in a digital and physical world that's getting increasingly smaller by the day can lead to one of the more sublime discoveries of the modern world; that you don't have to be the home of The Boss to be capable of breaking out The Sax to celebrate your local blue-collar culture. 

Everyone knows what it's like to slog through the 5 o'clock world, whether it actually comes at that hour, or they're punching out on the other end of the sunset. But what everyone knows, The Sax feels. Expresses. Reflects. Its curves echo the frown of your mouth after being woken by your alarm, the stoop of your shoulders as you clock in and see the same boulder you rolled up yesterday's hill, and the smirk you might give yourself on the commute home when remembering a day that made you feel like all that effort was worth it. That maybe this time the boulder will stay put, or at least feel a little lighter tomorrow.

The Sax Solo at the heart of this song is brief, but then, neither it nor you have the time to idle around. Someone's always watching the clock, and you've got to take your joy wherever you can find it, for however long you can. The Sax sings your frantic struggle in a way you never knew it could be expressed; of toil and the caustic bliss that comes as you lose yourself in the grind, exhausted from all labors physical, mental, existential. This is the sound of being run ragged. Of exhilaration won an inch at a time as you scramble to keep up with work, with life, with an endless, redlining cycle, teetering on the edge, in and out of control.